3 Women (Robert Altman, 1977)

The seventies are considered by many as the most important decade for the American film. A statement I can understand, but somehow most of the typical movies from this period rarely rank as my favorites. The best example is probably The Godfather, a good movie, but in my opinion overrated and not as good or influential as a handful of movies from the 40’s, 50’s or 60’s. I guess I am a bit prejudiced about this movie era. Trying to prove myself wrong I keep searching for pearls that were made in this time period. My quest led me to a very interesting filmmaker that I know mainly from his 90’s movies: Robert Altman.

His 3 Women was on top of my ‘to watch’ list since it deals with themes (dreams, women, surrealism, identity swapping) that can be found in some of my favourite movies (Persona, Mulholland Drive).  I can say that this one completely fulfilled my expectations and makes me want to watch more and more of Altman’s movies from the 1970’s.

The story initially revolves around 2 Women, one is the young girl Pinky (Sissy Spacek) who applies for a job in a luxueus spa/nursing home. On her first day she meets the experienced Millie (Shelley Duvall). Pinky is showing a more than conventional interest in her colleague and when she posts an add where she is looking for a roommate, Pinky applies and soon the two girls are living together. We see how they are visiting a ranch that is managed by the owners of their appartment, the male of the couple, Edgar, is showing an interest in both girls and his pregnant wife is nothing but silent, and draws beautiful wall and floor paintings. Slowly Millie is more and more trying to dominate the quiet Pinky and when Millie brings home Edgar, she kicks Pinky out of the house. The disappointed girl jumps in the pool resulting in a coma. When she wakes up from her coma, the roles of the two girls seem to have changed and the movie takes some very interesting turns.

I won’t spoil or interpret any of the movie’s details or twists. I just want to share my enthusiasm. Altman gives us a look into his dreams, he didn’t use a script (something he use to do more often) and says that the movie arose from one of his dreams. The acting from the two lead actresses is superb, Duvall and Spacek are, in my opinion, typically skilled actresses from the seventies that are not, like in current movies, drop-dead-gorgeous but actually can act convincingly and add personality. The tension, adoration, jealousy and frustrations between the two girls requires good acting and the two ladies will not disappoint you one moment.

Not only does this movie revolve around girls, the men that are in this movie are portrayed a bit superficial and dumb, both ignoring and wanting the two girls in their different ‘roles’. Considering this movie being a surrealistic dream, these observations can somehow be considered ‘Freudian’. Combined with the beautiful paintings, drawn by the third silent woman, and the 1001 other smart elements used by Altman (the pink and yellow colouring, the twin colleagues, the abundant presence of water, use of names etc) 3 Women seems to have a lot of room for interpretation and begs to be re-watched. Something I will definitely do in the (near) future, and perhaps I will add it to my favourites among the earlier mentioned Persona and Mulholland Drive, for now:

9/10

Un Chien Andalou (Luis Buñuel, 1929)

Instead of a conventional review, a youtube movie of this famous short made by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali. It had a big influence on filmmakers like David Lynch, especially in his Blue Velvet, and Ingmar Bergman (who uses the eye-slitting sequence in his Persona). Note the beautiful Tango music and how the director is graphically connecting some of the scenes.

Biutiful (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2010)

Uxbal’s (Javier Bardem) life is tough. He is practically on his own raising two kids since their mom is having a bipolar disorder. He is dealing with a large group of illegal immigrants (both Chinese and African),he is giving them jobs and is bribing the local cop to keep them out of trouble. On top of this he is making a living as a psychic who is hired to listen to the dead and report to their family. As his life wasn’t hard enough already Uxbal is diagnosed with cancer. With still a couple of months to live he is trying to keep his head above water hiding the fatal disease for his children.

As you can guess from this short synopsis, Iñárritu’s  movie is not a light entertaining film but as we are used from him a heavy and depressive drama that is definitely not recommended as a date movie. Where the director was using the so-called network narrative in his previous films (21 Grams, Babel) he chose to try a different approach having his protagonist in almost every scene of the film. Unfortunately this doesn’t work very well, and it is mainly because of the strong performance of Bardem that this movie is not failing in all its aspects.

There are two main problems that I have with this film. First of all, it is nothing but drama and misery not really seeming to lead anywhere. To me these choices seem somewhat easy and might stem from a lack of creativity. What could be the message of a director showing us no sense of humour, hope or putting it in any kind of perspective. Sure the drama makes the movie compelling enough and because of a decent directing and cinematography it grabs your attention but all the elements combined are simply too dramatic. Secondly, the strong point of Babel and especially 21 Grams, my favourite from the director, is that they have a strong plot. The storyline build out of different parts in the narrative are coming together in a logical and satisfying closure point. In Biutiful we seem to be going nowhere but downhill without any kind of surprise or twist. Of course with the structure chosen here this is not to be expected. Perhaps one should consider this one more as a study of a struggling caring father.

Yes, of course the director wants to confront us with a cruel reality and let us question the way society is dealing with illegal immigrants for instance but in my opinion the focus and the way this is told is unbalanced. There are so many different elements in this film that it is hard to filter for a clear message for either one of them. Think about broken families, psychic abilities and moral questions regarding immigrants or maybe even capitalism and homosexuality, so a lot! Therefore I experienced this movie as a kind of messy and distractive in all its different themes but nevertheless it did make an impression. But, I have to say, that some scenes are so confronting and uncomfortable that you need a heart of stone not to feel anything.

Biutiful isn’t by far as good as the previous films of Iñárritu, mainly caused by its less interesting and unsurprising plot. On the other hand the central performance of Bardem is impressive and if you like the trademark depressive themes of the filmmaker it may come recommended. I don’t think I will ever watch it again and am waiting for some more creativity and hope.

5.5/10